California may put in motion another national, and possibly worldwide, trend. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced last week that he was backing a panel's proposal to curb emissions of gases believed to cause global warming by as much as 25 percent by 2020.

That would reduce emission levels to what they were in 1990, when there were 7 million fewer people in California.

Schwarzenegger's initiative was triggered by a report produced a few days earlier by a panel assigned to address climate changes. The product of research and testimony by more than 100 scientists and other authorities over the last six months, the panel's voluminous blueprint suggested ways California could do its part to slow global warming.

The governor then fired off a letter to President Bush. On Monday, Schwarzenegger asked Bush to give the green light to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to let California enforce 2005 state air-quality rules requiring automakers, by 2016, to sell vehicles that emit one-third fewer greenhouse gases -- byproducts linked to the warming of the Earth -- than today's models. Several times over the last three decades, the agency has allowed California to set vehicle-emission standards that are more strict than the nation's.

Not everyone cheered the movie star-turned-politician.

Critics suggested the state was gambling with its economy, and for questionable gain because, they said, the jury is still out on whether carbon dioxide and other gases are heating up the Earth's atmosphere. Critics also maintained that California was venturing into an arena that belonged to international players.

Californians can expect to pay higher energy costs and lose tens of thousands of jobs under the plan, according to Margo Thorning, senior vice president and chief economist of the American Council for Capital Formation, a conservative Washington economic think tank.

Supporters insisted California has every right to engage in the sizzling international debate over climate change because of the sheer size of its economy -- it is world's seventh largest -- and its reputation for effecting change.

"How we proceed with this will have positive implications for the environment everywhere, because everywhere is following California," Schwarzenegger said in a speech during a San Francisco climate conference. He said earlier that California innovations, such as the catalytic converter and unleaded gasoline, are being used in places as far away as China.

History of innovation

Also, the generally pro-business governor rejected the notion that tightening screws on generators of greenhouse gases would jeopardize the economy.

"With all due respect, these are the same arguments people made in the 1970s when we got serious about cleaning our air and our water," he said.

Schwarzenegger said that huge strides have been made since the days when smog was so prevalent that for more than half the year, Los Angeles violated the federal government's standard for ozone, a pollutant that impairs breathing and poses a long-term health threat.

"I will never forget that in 1968, when I arrived here in California, my eyes were always burning and sometimes I had tears running down my cheeks," he said. "And I knew it was not because I missed Austria."

Today, the air, while still dirtier than in most areas of the country, is cleaner throughout Southern California, according to regional air-quality agencies.

The initiative, coming in an election year in which Schwarzenegger is looking to win another term, is described by political analysts as a delicate balancing act. The governor has managed to anger politicians on the right and the left.

Some Democrats say he is moving too slowly to address climate change, and some Republicans say he is moving too aggressively to combat a problem that hasn't been proven to be one.

"I'm disappointed that the governor has bought into the global warming religionists' agenda," said state Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, who represents large chunks of Southwest Riverside County and North San Diego County.

"On this issue, he's just wrong," Hollingsworth said. "He needs to pay attention to people who are just as informed scientifically as his Climate Action Team," and who dispute the notion that greenhouse gases are heating up the planet.

Waiting for Washington

Hollingsworth said the plan outlined by the governor could have grave consequences.

"The risk is that we destroy our economy and our competitiveness as a state, and thereby destroy the very prosperity that allows us to promote environmental values and deal with environmental problems," he said.

State Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, supports the plan.

"I think he's very much on the right path," Kehoe said, saying California should take the lead.

"We cannot wait on the federal government to do something," she said. "I was encouraged when the president said recently that America was addicted to oil. He's aware that we have a problem. However, no programs or policies supported by the Bush administration have taken substantial steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Kehoe added that she believes the governor's plan is reasonable.

Schwarzenegger is essentially borrowing a page from the playbook of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The agency that regulates smog in Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties pioneered last decade the world's first comprehensive market-based program for curbing pollution.

Like that so-called cap-and-trade program, Schwarzenegger wants to establish an overall ceiling for greenhouse gases. Then he would ratchet emissions down through a market in which businesses that manage to curb gases more than they are obligated to could sell credits to companies that have difficulty reaching their goals.

The proposal comes a few years after California's first venture into the climate-change arena. Taking aim at automakers, the Legislature passed a law that led to last year's regulation requiring production of vehicles that emit 30 percent less greenhouse gases by 2016.

Clock is ticking

Automakers loudly protested, saying the regulation would force them to increase fuel economy. Kehoe disputed that point.

"There is always the fear that you won't be able to buy the biggest, baddest SUV," Kehoe said. But she suggested emissions can be reduced without changing the mix of cars on the road.

The governor's initiative takes aim at most big industry: power plants, oil refineries, factories and timber companies. It would take effect in 2012.

That's too late, said U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is preparing to introduce federal legislation to take steps to reduce emissions this year, not six years from now.

"I regret that the governor has gotten cold feet and I urge him to reconsider," Feinstein said, in a statement. "The clock is ticking. If we don't slow, stop and reverse global warming soon, we will do irreparable harm to the world around us."

Feinstein said she intends to call for a national cap-and-trade system that would aim to reduce emissions by 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, 7.25 percent below today's levels. That would be akin to taking 85 million passenger cars off the road, she said.

Her bill would cap emissions at today's levels through 2010. Beginning in 2011 and continuing through 2015, the cap would ratchet down at the rate of 0.5 percent per year. Then it would fall 1 percent a year from 2016 through 2020.

The legislation would appear to face an uphill climb, as the United States refused to sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent by 2012.

Thorning, of the Washington think tank, suggested in an address to a congressional committee that any plan to reduce emissions domestically would face an uphill climb.

"A fixed cap on emissions inevitably collides with U.S. population growth," Thorning said. "More people means more mouths to feed, more houses to warm, more factories to run -- all of which require more energy and at least some additional greenhouse gas emissions."

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.